Mystery Unsolved
by Reedie
Summary: Enterprise gets send out to investigate a couple of dissapearances of humans on Thoridiana. Of course, the crew immediately gets themselves in trouble.


**Chapter**** 1**

"We're pleased to be able to welcome you here!" The most happy-looking of all the Thoridians in room said and smiled.

"We're grateful for such a welcome." Trip answered, his face twitched momentarily as if he wanted to smile, but he didn't. Instead, he extended his hand. The Thoridian's white gown rustled when he moved to look at the engineer. For a moment he stared at the hand, then recognition appeared on his face. "Ah! Of course." He said, extending his hand also and firmly grasping Trip's. "I forgot about that custom." The alien nodded politely. "I am head of Oktrano, Olubos Lumbsfield."

"I'm Commander Tucker." Trip replied and then waved towards the rest of the team with his other hand. "This is our helmsman, Ensign Travis Mayweather." Travis nodded and Olubos did the same. "-And our chief tactical/security officer, Malcolm Reed."

For a moment something flickered behind the alien's eyes, but nobody noticed it. He smiled politely and he returned his hands under his gown.

"Good, good." He said and turned abruptly. A low whistle escaped his mouth and a few moments later a couple of servants appeared. Both wore dark blue robes, and their hair was bound backwards into some kind of ponytail.

"Would you like something to drink or eat? I must insist that you at least try our famous ACathol'Y drink. It's most wonderful!" Olubos said happily, and send the servants off to apparently get some.

Though Malcolm would much rather declined, he saw to his annoyance that Trip agreed with a smile. They followed their host to a table and too soon for the armory officer's liking, the servants returned. He politely took one of the drinks from the servant, but did not drink it. Their host, though, took a big sip from his glass and nodded towards the away team to do the same. Malcolm lifted the glass to his mouth and pretended to take a sip. Travis and Trip each took a gulp from the strange colored liquid and Olubos nodded, satisfied.

"And, do you like it?" He asked. Malcolm lifted his gaze from the glass and their eyes briefly met. A silly grin appeared on Travis' face. "It's delicious!" He said and took another sip. Trip quickly agreed. Malcolm looked at the two and cleared his throat, deciding it was time to get to the point as apparently Trip didn't want to do it.

"I suspect you know why we're here, Mr. Lumbsfield?" He asked, putting the glass back on the table and straightening in his chair. When his question was met with a moment of silence, he decided to continue. "The disappearances?"

The Thoridian host seemed alerted and quickly sat up straight. "Ah, yes.." He mused, and his eyes shifted towards one of the servants behind Malcolm. "I'm sure you would like to see the information we've gathered so far on the disappearing of those humans?" He nodded to the servant, who quickly left.

"It's most unfortunate that those humans should have disappeared at the time they did." A moment of silence followed, interrupted by a sudden giggle from Trip. Malcolm's eyebrows shot up, doing a fair impression of T'pol he wondered what the commander thought was so funny. Suddenly Olubos spoke again. "It's strange though...they seem the have simple vanished in this air."

Malcolm heard behind him what he suspected was the servant returning with the information requested. "Tell me, Mr. Reed, did you like your drink?" Olubos asked, quickly changing the conversation's topic. Malcolm felt increasingly uncomfortable with the whole situation. How had it all changed so quickly? A moment ago he had been in complete control of the conversation.

"It, eh, was quite good." Malcolm quickly answered, trying to brush off the question. Olubos' smile suddenly disappeared. There was another giggle from Travis this time. Before Malcolm could say anything about it, Olubos suddenly rose from his seat. "Liar!" He said, his voice changed to an icy cold whisper. "You didn't have any, did you?"

Malcolm rose, too. He suddenly was aware of three important things;

One, his crewmates had changed into giggling 12 year olds who seemed to be able to pass out any second.

Two, that little fact was most likely caused by the drinks that had been offered to them by their suddenly evil-looking host.

Three, the people who had returned, were in fact not servants, but numerous guards who had now blocked all exits.

"Oh shit." Murmured Malcolm, trying to think of a way to get out of this situation. There was a 'thud' as Travis fell head first on the table. One of the guards thought this was the right moment to attack and tried to bash Malcolm in the head with some kind of club/staff. Malcolm quickly turned and grabbed the man's arm and twitched in such a way that the staff fell with a loud clattering sound on the ground. A second later he was grabbed from behind and another guard came from the front with some kind of hypo-spray in his hand. The armory officer used the one behind him as lift, jumped and kicked the man in front of him in the face. He twitched to get out of the man's grasp, and quickly looked up after he had succeeded to get his arms back. This time his eyes were met with a Thoridian with a spray in his hands.

The next moment Malcolm let out a cry of pain and jumped back, his hands flew to his eyes. The burning was so bad that he immediately felt sick in his stomach and thought he might throw up. Tears rolled across his cheeks, leaking from his now very watery eyes. When he tried to open his eyes to look where his enemies were, the burning sensation only increases. Whatever the Thoridian had sprayed in his eyes, it sure was painful.

The Brit was only just aware of a sound behind him, when he felt a hiss in his neck and another pain shot through his body. The rest was dark.

* * *

**Oooh****, clifhanger. Don't worry, I've got this story kind of figured out. I just have to write it XD **


End file.
